Organizations such as on-line retailers, network-based service providers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks. Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers and associated computer equipment.
Servers in a computing facility typically include several components that provide information about the server accessible from an aisle in front of the server or an aisle behind the server. Such components include indicator lights, identification tags, and communication ports. In addition, some servers include computing components that may be removed and replaced without removing the server from a rack in which it is mounted. For example, some servers are equipped with hard disk drives that can be removed by pressing an eject button while remaining hard drives and the server continue to function. Some servers use other mechanisms to allow hard drives to be swapped without removing the server from a rack in which it is mounted.
Servers comprising computers in a computing facility require inspection and periodic maintenance in order to meet customer expectations with respect to reliability. Periodic maintenance of computer systems may require planned and unplanned maintenance activities. In some situations, planned and unplanned maintenance activities require interaction with physical computer systems.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.